Now in their 20th year, the Golden Bullseye Awards are chosen annually to recognize the firearm industry’s best new offerings. Here is this year’s winner as selected by the editors of “The World’s Oldest And Largest Firearm Authority.”
Dry-fire practice is the most cost-effective method of honing your gun-handling skills and improving your marksmanship—made even more appealing in a time of elevated ammunition prices. The Mantis Blackbeard is an automatic trigger-reset system that makes dry-fire sessions with the AR-15 platform much more practical by eliminating the need to re-charge the rifle following each pull of the trigger, and our evaluation of the system in the “Dope Bag” (March 2022, p. 66) left us quite impressed.
Thoughtfully designed to replace a direct-impingement AR’s bolt-carrier group and magazine, the Blackbeard consists of two parts—a trigger-reset module and a battery pack—and most versions also incorporate a forward-firing laser, the point of impact of which can be adjusted through the ejection port without removing the unit from the gun. “The benefit of the Blackbeard system is that it allows the user to practice with the same rifle, trigger and optic combination he or she would otherwise use with live ammunition,” wrote our reviewer. “We found that the system made performing dry-fire versions of several drills very easy and enjoyable, even for the inexperienced.” For striking an effective balance of offering training that is both instructive and fun, we award the Mantis Blackbeard Accessory Of The Year. mantisx.com
About the Golden Bullseye Award:
The Golden Bullseye Awards were created two decades ago to recognize quality, innovation and value within the firearm industry, with the editors of the NRA Publications Division convening annually to nominate and select the standout performers from the previous year’s crop of new products. The discussions can get animated at times—as each year there are always more new guns, ammunition, optics and accessories worthy of accolade than we could possibly call out—but consensus eventually results in winners being selected, with the passionate back and forth serving as evidence of the firearm industry’s health and innovative spirit.
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